Three year timescale for Royal Norwich course relocation project

By Adam Lawrence

Wed 12 Nov, 2014

Members of Royal Norwich Golf Club in England have voted in favour of selling the club’s course for redevelopment and moving to a new 27-hole complex to be developed on the site of the current Weston Park course in the city.

The plan calls for the club’s current site at Hellesdon to be sold for housing development, while the Weston Park course would be rebuilt as a new 27-hole course, designed by architect Ross McMurray of European Golf Design, including extensive practice facilities. Both Weston Park and Royal Norwich members would be eligible to join the club at the new site, while the existing Royal Norwich course would be available for Weston Park members to play while the new course was under development.

Royal Norwich GM Phil Grice told the local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press, that the club hoped to submit a detailed planning application in spring 2015, and if that was accepted, to make the move to Weston Park late in 2017. A small part of the existing course at Royal Norwich will be lost in advance of the move, but the club has already constructed two new holes to ensure members will have a full course to play throughout the process. The club’s current course dates from 1893 and was redesigned in the 1920s by James Braid.